Who cares about all the people he'll hurt along the way amiright? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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Okay that's fair. I still don't see any imperialist actions (words don't count) here.
Okay fair enough again. It doesn't seem to be all that effective, but it is imperialist.
I mean Trump's support for the far right in the democratic West is shaping up to be more of a hindrance than a benefit so with that view it's a win for anti-imperialism if anything.
So about the same as the war on terror then. Or, adjusted for population, the Vietnam war. I haven't looked at American intervention in South Africa, but it's probably similar. Also that massive death toll is mostly American aid being pulled so it shouldn't increase much until he starts a war somewhere. You also now have Israel (AKA America's unsinkable aircraft carrier) trying to restart the goddamn Syrian civil war. I don't disagree that fascism in America will do great amounts of harm to a lot of people, but you seem to be underestimating just how much harm America does already.
I mean yeah obviously. I said as much myself, but given how modern America seems intent on killing a few millions or so people every decade and otherwise oppressing tens or hundreds of millions, and how Americans don't seem to give enough of a shit to do anything about that when it's their team doing it... eh, worse trades have been made.
Funding doesn't count either, I guess imperialism is only when you bomb someone, and the more you bomb someone the more imperialist it is.
... this the same democratic West which is having unprecedented levels of support for far-right parties?
Yes, we're looking at a projected death toll, just from the starting three months of fascist fuckwit policies, as some of the longest and most impactful conflicts of the post-WW2 US. One with a particularly sharp eye might note that that is a very bad start to what is likely going to be a very long regime.
... what.
Does that not count as a war? Or the aforementioned support for Israel expanding their current phase of the genocide to the West Bank? Or the support for Israeli strikes against Lebanon and continued occupation?
Israel isn't the US's unsinkable aircraft carrier, because Israel is only cooperative insofar as it helps Israeli aims. Israel is a kingmaker for domestic US politics ever since the evangelicals got involved as a major force, and they've decided to put their weight behind a fascist king which will support them as they continue to murder US citizens and journalists and sell US military secrets to whoever the fuck they feel like it.
No, I'm really not. You're underestimating just how much harm the US will continue to do under a fascist regime. You're cheering for the US's international position to revert to what it was pre-WW2. Unfortunately for literally everyone, the US was still immensely imperialist before it had robust ties with other democratic states.
What you're cheering for is not "The US will do fewer horrible things!", it's "The US will continue to do horrible things, but what good we do will now be cancelled." Subsidizing the defence of democratic European states? Already fucking canceled. Supporting free journalism? Already cancelled. Humanitarian aid to literal millions of people? Already cancelled. Mutual economic agreements? Already cancelled. Contributions to technologies with applications for the public good? Already cancelled. And this is just the fucking start of it.
But if you think "Europe no longer likes us :(" will stop a fascist regime from bombing Iran or Syria or the Ivory Coast or fucking Peru, you've got another thing coming.
No, funding absolutely does, but your list didn't include funding anything.
Yes, exactly that democratic West. Trump is a hindrance for the European far-right, not a boon.
Again, that massive death toll is mostly American aid being pulled so it shouldn't increase much until he starts a war somewhere.
Yes, this is exactly the business as usual that America losing clout with the NATO-aligned West is going to reduce. Israel can only act with impunity because Europe won't challenge it, again because of American influence (otherwise Europe has literally nothing to gain out of supporting Israel). Remember that Israel's largest trading partner is the EU, not America.
As opposed to all other US administrations since Reagan who have materially opposed or punished Israel for murdering US citizens and journalists or selling US military secrets to whoever the fuck they feel like it? Again, this is business as usual.
Yes, but its imperialism in terms of area and impact exploded during and after the cold war.
"Europe no longer likes us :(" won't stop them, but European sanctions might.
You uh
you sure about that
That seems an extremely curious conclusion to reach considering the surge in support for the far-right since the start of this year. One might even suspect it of being motivated reasoning.
... do you think that the death toll won't increase until he starts a war?
It'll increase with whatever the next fascist fuckwit policy is, and the administration is far from finished. Like holy shit, c'mon. Three months is not the end of the fucking race. We have, at minimum, another 45 fucking months of new and exciting fascist policies which will kill people.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Oh yes, as we all know, there are no other genocidal hypermilitarized states in the world that Europe doesn't challenge. Europe, happily, is out there playing world police for any state that isn't protected by the US.
Europe also has nothing to gain out of supporting Russia, yet there remains significant demographics which are full-throated in their support for Russia.
Maybe reducing everything to materialist analysis is incredibly fucking blinkered?
Okay? So is Europe willing to hurt itself economically to punish Israel and the US? Europe's morals are, of course, super strong; that's why we go for an idealist analysis for Europe but a materialist analysis for everywhere else in the world? I'm sure European countries aren't struggling with far-right agitation on both cultural and economic grounds.
"and after the Cold War"
are you fucking stupid.
I love that I can demonstrate the Trump regime going above and beyond on Israel and your response is still a "It's business as usual!"
Whatever, man. If you're so fucking desperate to critically deepthroat fascism in the hopes that the American Empire will be the pure evil regime you so desire it to be (obviously, no one would side with a powerful and self-interested genocidal regime, like China or Russia or the Saudis, so when it happens to the US, everything will finally be okay in world politics 😊), far be it from me to stop you.
Yes? Your list included cutting funding, but I'm not seeing anyone being funded here other than Israel (business as usual). Well you also mention the European far-right, but while I don't know much about their relationship with MAGA other than that it exists I doubt National Rally or AfD are getting American tax money.
Huh? What surge? I could be missing something, but I've only heard of European far-right parties trying to distance themselves from Trump and the Trump rampage losing Canada's Conservatives a near-guaranteed majority.
Yeah probably, but how is he going to kill more on-Americans than he already did and is by cutting foreign aid? There's only so much you can do to kill people outside your country without going to war.
I can't think of any genocidal hypermilitarized state that Europe isn't at odds with other than Israel. However, even if there was, the Middle East is Europe's backyard and would be their sphere of influence if it wasn't already claimed by America, so they want it to be stable because when it's not stable refugees flood Europe. Well, more accurately Europe feels like it's being flooded with immigrants but that's neither here nor there.
Something something war on terror.
He goes above and beyond on Israel rhetoric, and frankly neither I nor anybody else give a shit about what the US government has to say about Israel. Call me when he actually does something more than what Biden already did.
I mean, plenty of people would side with a powerful and self-interested genocidal regime, but fortunately Trump has made it a point to actively antagonize his closest and most powerful allies so there's not much reason to worry about that possibility. No ally Trump can possibly make would make up for the hole left by Europe and Canada.
So if you cut funding to exercise imperialist aims, it's not imperialism. Great. Fucking fantastic. Only increasing funding counts. Like some sort of fucked up court of law insisting on some loophole.
Are you not paying attention at all
https://europeannewsroom.com/far-right-rise-what-does-the-extremist-surge-mean-for-the-eu
Jesus fucking Christ, do you have no conception of how powerful countries interact with others on the international stage? Starvation by sanctions, revocation of medical cooperation, blocking international orgs, financial sabotage, coups, intelligence sharing or restriction, propaganda and outright support of fascist factions in democratic nations, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.
Funny how you have a full understanding of the myriad ways which America enables Israel, outside of just funding, and then completely fucking forget about it when considering what America could offer to other genocidal states. Jesus fucking Christ.
"At odds with"
You uh, wanna remind me what genocidal hypermilitarized state Europe is meaningfully challenging?
Oh, great, wherein even the supposed leftists are parroting great power politics. Jesus fucking Christ.
'Something something' is fucking right. If you think the war on terror compares to even a single decade of the Cold War, you're out of your fucking gourd.
"Rhetoric won't influence Israeli fascism, but European rhetoric will totally reduce the effect on American fascism!"
That being said, it's so fucking easy Jesus Christ
Welcome to month 3 of our 48 month fascism celebration.
Sure there is. Russia et co. The alignment is already moving that way.
I don't see how refusing to pay for something is imperialism. Retracting one's influence on other countries is literally the opposite of what the word means, whether it's a good thing or not.
I am, but how the heck does that have anything to do with the Trump admin? This is the continuation of a trend going back at least a decade.
I mean it's funding, weapons, military support and diplomatic support. What genocidal state do you think Trump will offer these things to other than Russia (which would require Trump to make an outright enemy out of the EU)?
I mean, Iraq? Afghanistan? Somalia? Yemen? Pakistan? The cold war was pretty bad, but so was the war on terror.
I don't care about European rhetoric either, but with their political stability and economic potential at stake they're likely to not stop at rhetoric. That's the whole point I'm trying to make.
Okay that is ever so slightly worse than just rhetoric.
Oh, I guess I was implicitly assuming Europe wouldn't turn far-right, which is completely unfounded. If that happens then I'll take back everything I said.
Imperialism is the use of one's power to exert unilateral control over other countries. Funding and defunding are both ways to unilaterally exert control over other countries. Defunding countries which are defending themselves from imperialism in the hopes of the imperialist aggressor achieving their aims is absolutely imperialism or support for imperialism.
The surge this year, then, being...?
... do you have any idea how many genocidal states are in existence right now?
You talk about "The Global South", but your focus on developed countries is... significant.
And Trump is already making an enemy of the EU. It's been three fucking months and our almost century-long alliance with Western Europe is in tatters.
Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia? Really? You could've at least picked Libya.
In any case, you can pick any decade of the Cold War you like and I can name half a dozen US-sponsored unjustified wars and coups which led to far greater death tolls than the entire ~15 year duration of the 'War on Terror'. As I said, any individual decade of the Cold War alone is worse than our conduct post-Cold War - and that, I may emphasize, is a low bar for the Cold War to limbo under. But it manages.
"The Imperial Power(tm) is more desperate and isolated" does not have the effect you think it does.
We've already got Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, and Turkiye there, with the Netherlands, Italy, and Austria looking to radicalize, and the UK, France, Sweden, Belgium, and Germany all at risk.
The dominos are set, and cheering on the one falling isn't going to lead to the rest standing firm, in all likelihood.
This is the case for Ukraine and is imperialism because of the mineral deal stuff, but other foreign aid Trump cut seems to be more of a case of "fuck you I got mine" rather than trying to get exert control over anyone.
What surge? The article you linked doesn't list an out of the ordinary increase this year.
Plenty, but AFAIK America has little interest in most of them.
He's antagonizing them, but so far he hasn't done anything that would cause, say, EU sanctions on America.
The military intervention in Libya was separate from the war on terror to my knowledge, while the one in Somalia had the textbook war on terror motivation of "counterterrorism". It also, in typical war on terror fashion, restarted the civil war and destroyed any hope Somalia had for stability for a generation.
Okay bet. Do 1980-1989.
I wouldn't count Turkey there since their government isn't exactly far-right, but yeah fair enough
Rather than cheering I simply have very little faith in Americans' or Europeans' ability to resist the rise of the far-right, because, well, gestures broadly.
His administration is quite nakedly making demands of other countries as part of 'negotiating' tariffs.
I can think of very few countries that America has 'little interest' in, and much of our 'lack' of interest in genocidal states is because that was, in the post-Cold War environment, bad PR.
We now have a regime that doesn't care about PR. In fact, bad PR is a good thing to their power base, because it 'owns the libs'.
Certainly, the fact that I pointed out "can offer genocidal states" necessarily, for that matter, implies that the states I'm talking about do not currently receive full US support. Do you think there's anyone Trump wouldn't support to have another country's leader slobbering on his limp knob and calling him "Sir, Mr. Trump", with tears in his eyes?
And you think the War on Terror in Somalia compares to how bad the Cold War was... how? Morality or intensity, I'll accept either justification?
Since that is the context in which your list was made and which I expressed incredulity at Somalia's inclusion?
Are we talking about tariffs or foreign aid right now? The tariff-based negotiations are pretty nakedly imperialist, I'll concede that. Cutting non-Ukraine foreign aid is not.
That's... fair enough??? Part of me doesn't want to believe it'll go quite that easily, but you never know with these people.
I mean Ethiopia, backed by the US, went in and restarted an almost 20 years old civil war, causing the death of about a hundred thousand people and displacing a million (between 2006 and 2009, I can't find numbers for post-2009 but it can't be good). It doesn't obviously measure up to the cold war on its own, but it's another horrible thing caused by the war on terror.
Considering that the intention in both cases is to get other actors to lick Trump's boots, what's the difference?
Fighting had never stopped. The idea that Ethiopia restarted the civil war is not even vaguely close to what happened.